Anand Krishna’s musings

At the end of Day Two, the Kanpur test between India and South Africa is very interestingly poised. South Africa lost all their first innings wickets on Day One for a score of 265, the result of a post-lunch collapse. And although both Sehwag and Jaffer were out early, the Indian middle order fought manfully, and helped India take a slender lead of 23 runs, with one wicket still remaining. The pitch was not easy to bat on, and that is the context in which we must view Saurav Ganguly’s solid 87 (with 9 fours and a huge six off Harris). In fact, the batsman has himself described this as one of his better innings.

There was some heated moments as well, when Steyn and Yuvraj exchanged what were clearly not pleasantries. Yuvraj had hit Steyn for two fours and the bowler was quite annoyed. It took the efforts of Graeme Smith and Ganguly (not to mention the two umpires) to persuade Steyn and Yuvraj to get back to cricket. I wonder if there will be more such verbal duels over the remainder of the match- though I sincerely hope not!

Miracles can and do occur in cricket. Thus, if Sreesanth and Ishant can score another 20-30 runs for the last wicket in the first hour or so, India will feel pretty happy with their performance. A lead of 100 or so would have been very hard for Smith and his men to surmount, given the overall behaviour of the pitch. In fact, the South African coach has been quoted as saying that even a target of 150 in the 4th innings would prove a handful for India.

Let’s see what the morrow has in store for the two teams and their fans. Clearly, India needs to get Smith, McKenzie and Amla out quickly. Not that Kallis, Prince, de Villiers and Boucher can be under-estimated- but just that the top three batters have been most consistent over the past couple of matches. If India is set a target of less than 200 runs, with 1.25 day or so left, we may still square the series.